Freerunner's Future

[Wolfgang Spraul]

Dale,

> The Freerunner had (has?) great potential, but we
> couldn't realize that potential without basic reliable functionality.
> If the concerted efforts of many talented (in some cases even paid)
> engineers couldn't achieve that basic milestone, it seems unlikely
> that it will be achieved by a loosely-organized group of unpaid (and
> demoralized) volunteers.

Thanks for your concern and (slight) impatience.
Several efforts are underway to form really solid groups, both community 
and commercial, to continue with the open phone.
I haven't noticed any demoralization, quite to the contrary. But I do 
believe the size of our community is stagnant or slowly shrinking. Which 
only makes sense given that there is not much visible progress right now.

BTW here are some interesting statistics about our community:
http://downloads.openmoko.org/stats/05/
And number of subscribers to our mailing lists:
https://monitor.openmoko.org/munin/chandra/sita.openmoko.org-mailman_detail.html
(openmoko-kernel is missing for some reason, we will fix this, I believe 
it has around 600 subscribers)

As for the 'big picture' of open devices - on the technical level there 
are a number of categories that are merging over the next few years: 
phones, portable media players, electronic dictionaries, navigation 
devices. Other non-mobile categories are also not far behind (picture 
frames, set-top boxes, wifi routers, NAS). For these types of devices, 
there are a few 'open' options here and there, but by Openmoko's 
standards for the largest part it's all closed.

Going forward we need to find more semiconductor partners that 
understand 'open' and know how they can create value with it.
In today's consumer electronics industry, semiconductor companies are 
the ones writing the drivers, they do reference designs for 
manufacturers. Trying to do open devices without the help of 
semiconductor companies will just not work.
The good news is that pretty much all semiconductors have a relaxed, and 
often friendly, attitude towards 'Linux' nowadays. They see the 
potential, and real size of the market today. Things like Android help 
tremendously!

Bottom line - the path to a fully open phone as envisioned by Openmoko 
and our phantastic community is still long. Maybe even 5+ years.
I'm not discouraged by that at all. gta02-core is on track, and Werner 
has as clear a long-term plan of why and where this will all go as 
everybody else. Realistically I am hoping that actual physical hardware 
will come out of it within 12 months or so.
In other parts of the Openmoko landscape, work is going on on non-phone 
projects, whether they are called Project B or C or D.
Even if those devices are not a phone initially, trust me they will all 
become phones :-)

Thanks for staying with us, I hope you enjoy the ride with your 
'pioneering' Neo (I'm a daily user myself).
Best Regards, and keep your feedback coming!
Wolfgang

Dale Schumacher wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 9:00 PM, Boris Wong<lists.boris at bshed.com> wrote:
>   
>> Steve Mosher wrote:
>>     
>>> 1. Its a mobile Phone First, and a multi purpose platform secondarily
>>>
>>>       
>> I actually like the perspective of #1 very much and you should keep it
>> as such.
>>     
> ...snip...
>   
>> Free the phone; we already have multi-purpose platform devices that run
>> linux.
>>     
>
> I'm totally on-board with this message, vision and mission.  The
> problem is--after all this time, that vision remains unfulfilled.  My
> biggest disappointment has been the fact that my Openmoko Freerunner
> (which I've had since helping form the Austin buying group) is still
> not _nearly_ as reliable as any cheap simple handset I can get for 10%
> of the cost.  The Freerunner had (has?) great potential, but we
> couldn't realize that potential without basic reliable functionality.
> If the concerted efforts of many talented (in some cases even paid)
> engineers couldn't achieve that basic milestone, it seems unlikely
> that it will be achieved by a loosely-organized group of unpaid (and
> demoralized) volunteers.
>
> I truly hope I'm wrong--and I applaud the efforts of those who
> continue to strive for this goal.  I also want to express my thanks
> for the efforts of all those who have worked so long and hard trying
> to achieve this vision.
>
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